I'm sitting in the Minneapolis airport right now, smack dab in the middle of my three hour layover in between La Guardia and Madison. After this summer, I would say I am a pretty experienced traveler, but certain events of this weekend almost made it seem like I'm not. Let me explain.
One of the most important things I learned from my Eurotrip: Pack lightly. I told myself after the whole
leaving my rolling suitcase in Venice ordeal, I would always be a light packer. I definitely followed through this weekend.
I think I might have been a little over-confident in my intuitive travel abilities. Basically, the fact that I am still in the U.S. and speak the same language as everyone else, I thought it would be easy. It's not. I also did not purchase/use a map of the city or the subway the entire weekend. Really, not too smart on my part. I've slept a total of 14 hours the past three nights, and I think the lack of sleep has affected my street smarts.
In comparison to all the subways I took while in Europe, the New York city subways basically suck. They're dirty. They're super-confusing. They're inconsistent. I saw a rat. I suppose I'm ranting so much since it took us two hours to get to our hotel in Brooklyn (yes, Brooklyn) Friday night after our meetings. None of us had eaten all day, I had been awake and traveling since 5am, we're all in our business clothes, and switching trains five times is just icing on the cake. Lesson to be learned: Buy a Metro map. Duh.
Unfortunately, we had meetings all day Friday and Saturday, which gave us very little time to actually see the city. Saturday morning we got to Manhattan a bit early, so we were able to walk around the Farmer's market in Union Square before heading over the the AIESEC office. Saturday night we walked around a little bit downtown, and surprisingly avoided any sort of shopping. We walked through Times Square, saw the Rockefeller Center, and saw Big from Sex and the City waiting to get into a club. (I was momentarily starstruck.) We ate dinner at a Korean BBQ, and although fairly expensive when you factor in tip and two bottles of wine, it was really, really good. I can't remember the name of what I ate, though. Even if I could remember, I wouldn't be able to pronounce it anyway.
That's pretty much the extent of what I got to see in NYC, but I loved everything that I was able to see, and hopefully next time (which might actually be in three weeks) we will have more time to walk around and sight see a bit, go out on the town, and avoid two hour subway rides to Brooklyn.
The Business Development meetings themselves were good, but made for a very long two days. It was really nice to finally get everyone together and see the full scope of things. Sometimes I worry that this might be a little more I can handle, and the fact that it is out of my comfort zone, but after this weekend, I'm definitely ready to get the ball rolling. And start maintaining some massive rep.
Boarding flight in approximately 30 minutes.
